gurgle into him like
cooling water. It seemed to flood his parched being with a new vitality.

"Oh, I doubt we'll be gey ill off!" he heard his mother whine, and at
that reminder of her nearness he checked the great, satisfied breath he
had begun to blow. He set the bottle on the table, bringing the glass
noiselessly down upon the wood, with a tense, unnatural precision
possible only to drink-steadied nerves--a steadiness like the humming
top's whirled to its fastest. Then he sped silently through the
courtyard and locked himself into the stable, chuckling in drunken
triumph as he turned the key. He pitched forward on a litter of dirty
straw, and in a moment sleep came over his mind in a huge wave of
darkness.

An hour later he woke from a terrible dream, flinging his arms up to
ward off a face that had been pressing on his own. Were the eyes that
had burned his brain still glaring above him? He looked about him in
drunken wonder. From a sky-window a shaft of golden light came slanting
into the loose-box, living with yellow motes in the dimness. The world
seemed dead; he was alone in the silent building, and from without there
was no sound. Then a panic terror flashed on his mind that those eyes
had actually been here--and were here with him still--where he was
locked up with them alone. He strained his eyeballs in a horrified stare
at vacancy. Then he shut them in terror, for why did he look? If he
looked, the eyes might burn on him out of nothingness. The innocent air
had become his enemy--pregnant with unseen terrors to glare at him. To
breathe it stifled him; each draught of it was full of menace. With a
shrill cry he dashed at the door, and felt in the clutch of his ghostly
enemy when he failed to open it at once, breaking his nails on the
baffling lock. He mowed and chattered and stamped, and tore at the lock,
frustrate in fear. At last he was free! He broke into the kitchen, where
his mother sat weeping. She raised her eyes to see a dishevelled thing,
with bits of straw scattered on his clothes and hair.

"Mother!" he screamed, "mother!" and stopped suddenly, his starting eyes
seeming to follow something in the room.

"What are ye glowering at, John?" she wailed.

"Thae damned een," he said slowly, "they're burning my soul! Look,
look!" he cried, clutching her thin wrist; "see, there, there--coming
round by the dresser! A-ah!" he screamed, in hoarse execration. "Would
ye, then?" and he hurled a great jug fro